Disclaimer: Not mine, and I'm perfectly alright with that. My therapist tells me I am a strong, independent woman without it, and she and some strong medication are helping to convince me of that.
A/N: I FINALLY saw The League of Villans (during like, the last playing re-run); I think I had the stupidest grin on my face the whole time. Obsessed? I think so. Anyways, I was inspired by it – and all my fantastic reveiwers – to write. (I was inspired before, of course, but I was just too excited waiting for the re-run to air I couldn't bring myself to do it.) Before I ramble on, though, back to the many reveiws I got. I think half of you predicted death. What foolish pessimists to think I would do such a thing! (Okay, I take that back. You're not foolish. Just pessimistic. I still love you all, though!) This is the leading step into an even more eventful… event. I need some new synonyms.
Monday afternoon, day of their first lab, and Jimmy was late. Again. Cindy didn't mind all that much. After the complete idiots they had both made out of themselves in the gymnasium on Friday and the stupid little fiasco with him and his equally stupid little friend on Sunday, she wasn't all that thrilled about the prospect of being contained in such a small square footage with him again. She took the given time to work on an essay for English Literature with Lizzie.
"I've no idea why you want to do this so soon," her roommate complained. "It's not due for another three weeks!"
"I prefer not to start when the deadline is looming so ominously near," Cindy sighed. "It heightens the anxiety and writing becomes less natural and without flow. Best to do it when it will turn out best – without procrastination."
"Thank you, Dr. Phil," Lizzie groused, chin in hand.
Cindy wondered why the essay could be so opposing on her friend when the topic was so intently focused on her favorite subject of matter. Cindy stuck the piece of paper with the promt scribbbled on it under Lizzie's nose and inquired whether she had read it or not.
"Ahh, yes," Lizzie serenaded. "The impecable writings of Mark Twain. What a perception, eh?"
"'Love: the irresistable desire to be irresistibly desired.' A great big load of crock compacted into eight words."
"That's just what people in denial say."
Cindy rolled her eye with a huff and refrained from biting back. She was greatful she had not mentioned aloud the second encouter with Jimmy; she had gotten enough grief – i.e. the denial accusation – during the past weekend. The last thing her roommates needed was additional fuel to add to their firey inquirations of every minute of her past, because even time spent away from her Jimmy dearest could hold the utmost importance to the key behind her true love. (Or so she had been told repeatedly.) She was coming to see her friends as the siblings she had never wanted, because no matter how many times she told them Jimmy could get the whole campus – no, state – taken over by pants and she wouldn't bat an eyelash, they persisted on, as well as not understanding her quip.
On cue, (but without killer jeans in pursuit,) Jimmy burst through the door and pounded into the room with Goddard following closely at his heels. They both skidded to a halt at Jimmy desk, and Jimmy gasped out, breathing heavily, "So sorry. Was – detained… I …partner up – lab…" He weakly waved an arm at them to carry on. Lizzie and Cindy shared a look, but they stood and made the nessisary preperations for the testing that was to be done in the lab experimentations. Goddard, with his mechanical advantages, bounded up to Cindy when she was spotted without showing any signs of having run a conciderable distance. Jimmy was still too winded to call him.
"Hey boy!" Cindy cooed, dropping down to one knee and petting him fondly on the head. "How have you been? Bet you didn't expect to see me here, huh?" Goddard shook his head. His television moniter opened and the message "Jimmy never mention you were in his class," scrawled across it.
"Sounds like Neutron," Cindy said. "Too busy creating an alternate blood source or something to remember life." Jimmy had walked up and caught the message just before it was erased and replaced with the start of another one. He made a wild dive forward, shutting the screen. Still holding it closed, he stammered, "Er, don't you have some chemicals to be testing?" Cindy stood, unable to withhold an involuntary nose-wrinkle at him, and continued on to the storage shelves where the beakers she was in need of lay. Unfortunatly for her psyche, Lizzie was watching the interludes with a less-than-amused smile that Cindy was unable to avoid no matter what particular corner of the room it was she pretended to take interest in.
"Just shut up," Cindy muttered.
"I didn't say anything," Lizzie said airily as she preped the test tubes, her voice a bit too bright for her friend to think an I-told-you-so comment wasn't on the mind. Cindy turned her back to her to help Sam, the friendly giant, who was was having some difficulty in lighting his Bunsen burner. He created a flame only once and it was to his fringe which stuck sraight out most inconvieniently from his forhead, (much like the rest of his dark hair did, no matter what was done to it.) Cindy came to his aid with the Bunsen burner; Goddard took care of the hair matter.
"Thank you," he the the former, his sable eyes filled with gratitude. "We'll all be lucky if I don't blow the lab up before the hour is out." Cindy grinned.
"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "That's Neutron's job."
Sam glanced across the room, his eyes falling on Jimmy's back in the opposite corner. He leaned in towards Cindy and said softly, "I heard from my older brother he blew out the windows in all the classrooms down the hallway last year from a big blow-up he caused. So it's really true then?"
This was news to Cindy. "Did he now? Well! That's one he never managed in elementary school. What was he using?"
Sam shrugged, sables eyes wide. "He doesn't seem like a very, er, by the books professor, does he?"
Cindy shook her head, pulling the protective goggles resting on the top of her head over her emerald eyes before measuring out the correct amount of liquid from the first of vials. "He's younger than you, has never dated, and been in college practically half his life. Expect naivity and eccentricities. I'd just go with it while holding onto something very sturdy."
Sam, looking not in the least bit more comforted by the affirmation of his chemistry professor, turned back to his own lab set-up, pulling a pair of screening gloves on and over the cuffs of his lab coat. Cindy set the test tube full of the mystery liquid next to two that Lizzie had already measured out. "Do you always have to scare people like that?" she asked.
"With what?" Cindy scoffed. "The truth?" She accepted a paper testing strip from her partner. She dipped an eyedropper into the first tube, sucked up some of the liquid, and deposited two drops onto the strip.
"You could just lie, you know," Lizzie said, recording in wide, loopy writing the bile-green color the testing paper turned on asheet of notebookpaper. "It would make all our lives so much happier. I know that I, for one, could have gone without the account of that guy – Carl? – eating those alien blubber nuggets, or whatever they were."
"If I recall, though, you were the one who asked," Cindy voiced. She bent down, making sure the liquid she was pouring into a small beaker was level and the proper amount. Instinct strayed her hand as she was moving the item to the burner. She glanced at Lizzie, repremanded herself, then glanced down at Goddard, who had remained near her station in the event of Sam setting something – or someone, namely himself – on fire again.
"What's that rule about sulfur again?" she asked him. He tilted his head to the side, as much of a shrug as a metal canine could give. Although still perplexed, she set the beaker on the grill above the small flame. Following the instructions, she lifted up a small, clear tube about the size of her thumb and uncorked the end. She half-listened to the low murmerings of her peers as she waited for small bubbles to appear in the simmering beaker, wondering what it was that was bothering her about the set mandates.
Goddard barked twice as Cindy lifted the vial and shook the sulfur powder into the softly boiling liquid. Jimmy, who was still observing several groups across the room and in the middle of telling them about a very important ommision from the instructions, turned at Goddard's outcry. Horrified, he dashed across the room, dodging people and tables, crying out, "Oh, no! No no no no! Oh no! No no! Oh!" Cindy turned around; Jimmy grabbed her about the waist, both moving past her and shoving her away from the table in one deft movement. He lept for the beaker just as it exploded.
The class had gone deathly still. Lizzie had backed up as far away from the table as she had been able and was pressed up against a fake marble-top counter, both hands covering her mouth and eyes enormously expanded. Sam was torn between a look of horrer and facination. Goddard produced a hand broom and dustpan and began to sweep up the glass remnants. Jimmy had not yet moved. His arms were still held in the air and reaching for the now-shattered beaker. He turned slowly, jerkily.
He was dripping with the mixed chemicals. The cuffs of his lab coat and several patches on his chest and arms were scorched. His face twitched several times, as though he were going to say something, but he either could not summon enough vocal capability or nerves to communicate in any other way than to shake his still raised arms a few times. Cindy knew it didn't help any matters, but she couldn't help it: she burst out laughing.
Jimmy's eyes shot open. He stared at her incredulous, but she didn't stop. She couldn't. She laughed harder, if anything. Locating a chair next to her, she collapsed into it, holding her side and wiping away tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes. "Out of all the years," she gasped, "it's finaly my fault, and you still get the blow!" Jimmy glowered at her as she went off into another fit of hysterics. He was muttering under his breath as he passed her and returned back to the area he was at previous to the exploding lab assignment, where he finished telling them to not mix the sulfur powder with the chemical in test tube number three when it was to be boiled.
Lizzie was horrified. She looked it, and she made sure Cindy knew in several dozen different ways, (most of them verbal), while they were cleaning up the mess, leaving class, on the way to their final subject, on the way home, and even when Cindy closed the door to the shared bathroom to take a shower, the shrill voice followed her with a final admonishment: "…you just sat there and laughed! I can't believe you laughed at him!"
"I'm sure if you tried really hard, you could find some way," Cindy retorted, turning on the water as she undressed herself and let her hair down from her ponytail. Lizzie blessedly abandoned her post at the bathroom door in favor of the living room, where Emily had just deposited her things after walking in the door. Cindy could tell by the lack of vibrations coming up through the floor that even Miles had turned of his music and abandonded his domain to hear the exaggeration-enriched Thriller of the Day. She cut her shower as short as possible to save herself a bit of skin. Emily was staring wide-eyed as she emerged.
"Well, Cindy," she said, sitting Indian style in the armchair, hands clasped and in her lap, "it sounds as though you had a rather eventful afternoon."
"Without the 'rather'…yeah, you could say that," Cindy said. Miles laughed and stood, heading back to his cave once more. Lizzie, still outraged and shocked, huffed to the room she shared with Emily. The latter also stood and said brightly, "Hey! I could use your help with a project I have to do."
Cindy smiled ruefully. "Thanks, Em, but painting is really not my thing."
"Oh, I know!" her ever-cheerful friend chirped. It was quite out of context to the comment that made Cindy scowl. "Oh, I'm sorry. It's not like that. I'm supposed to introduce someone to an abstruse form of releasing the soul. Just go find some clothes you wouldn't mind ruining…"
"An abstruse form of releasing the soul" turned out to be what Cindy called "artistic crap". She didn't use this term in front of her neurotic friend, though, and politely listened to the many moods, feelings, and emotions behind the random swirls and designs of abstract art. She was nearly convinced by the time the heartfelt and admissible speech and been delivered.
Cindy found the actual painting to be even more fun and amusing than the motivational address. She and Emily giggled constantly over skewed interpritations of the other's composition. Occasionally, Cindy flipped her canvas, giving her different angles of abstract possibilities and even stronger conformations that if this really was what was deeply imbeded in her subconcious as Emily said, then she was quite some distance down the road to lunacy. Somewhere amidst their fun, the doorbell rang. Cindy answered it after losing "rock, paper, scissors" to her contender. When she opened it, she really wished she had done "rock".
"Cindy, you've no ide – " Jimmy cut himself short and looked her up and down once before intently focusing on the hydrangea bushes to the left of their small porch. "Um…did I come at a bad time?"
Cindy was perplexed; she gave herself a once-over that erased that. She was wearing a light blue tee-shirt, two sizes too small and had a brownstain over her left collerbone, denim shorts not fit for the public world, and gray socks that came up to just below her knees with black '80's argyle stitched on, nearly her whole entire being speckled with paint. "The fact that you came over at all might imply that it is," she said, very self concious of the fact that her hair was wet, curling, and had not been brushed. "What did you do now?"
He opened his mouth to speak again when he noticed Emily just over Cindy's shoulder. "I'll be right back, Em," she said. She nodded and went back to painting. Cindy stepped across the threshold of the door after slipping her feet into the first pair of shoes they came in contact with: Miles' bright orange Converse sneakers. Fantastic.
"Alright," she said, closing the door behind her, "What's up?"
Jimmy looked dreadful. The way he was holding himself up insinuated that strenuous physical activities he had participated in stretched beyond just a sprint to a late class. He had bags under red-rimmed eyes. He had changed out of the lab coat that had suffered casualties from Cindy's experiment blow-up and into an un-charred one. He laughed wheezily at the door frame behind Cindy, his voice cracking and stuttering with exhaustion. "If you only knew. I-I've done everything I possibly could! I've called everyone, everything, I-I-I've tried communication, a-and messages, and – "
Cindy was becoming worried as well as impatient. "Would you quit the rambling and just tell me what's wrong?"
Jimmy ran a hand through his hair as he studied the woodwork he was standing on. "I got an e-mail yesterday. A rather threatening one."
"You insult a lot of people. Who from?" Cindy put her hands on her hips and stared him down.
"Well, it's not really a 'who' than more of a 'what'." Jimmy looked her in the eye for the first time. What Cindy saw behind them terrified her.After a pause he said, slowly and drawn out, "It would seem that King Goobot found me again. And not just me. All of us."
A/N: Woot! I pulled some more all-nighters writing this. I love summer vaca. Not that I didn't pull all-nighters when it wasn't, but that's not the point. The point is: I don't know where I'm going, but that doesn't matter because another chapter is up and I want some Milk Duds! Thanks again to my diligent reveiwers! Any more and my replies will be as long as the chapters.
Flower Powerer: Hope your concerns were heightened! Lol, I like pudding. It's sugar-filled. (Not that I need anymore of that…)
Arein: Haha, I LOVE that song! I'm afraid I can't tell you anything right now, though. It's a secret!
NeutronPhantom: Thanks so much, and good luck with yours!
Phantomhobbitses: Thank you, and don't worry about it. I surprised myself with such a quick update! You never had time!
Halfa-Goddess: Aww! Thank you so much! I have authors on alert that I geek out about when there stuff turns up in my mail. I feel so weird – but happy – that I'm one of them!
Barlee: Ahh, the irrepressible Barlee. To start off, I'm VERY pleased you enjoyed it so much. Second, that was my chronic sarcasm acting up again when I made that 72 chapters comment. Very sorry. Next, I am NOT trying to make a MilesxCindy! (Sorry if I quashed any hopes for anyone!) You hit it spot-on with the brother description. Lol, and I couldn't help but love him even more, and I created him! XD I'm such a dork! The library scene – can you believe that was one of the things I was afraid I was going to have to leave out? I was so ecstatic when I moved things around to make it work; you've no idea how long I've had that stuck in my head, just waiting to be smooged out into an update! Phwew! Onto review numbah two! YAY! I'm glad I could make you laugh; it sure made me when my grandma told me this was how she met Grandpa. (Although I did up the snottiness coming from Cody. I couldn't help myself, lol!) As for the pick-up line, I had never heard it until my friend – who I think is out of her mind, but whom I love dearly anyways – sent everyone a series of e-mails that had hundreds of pick-up lines for both genders, as well as responses to some of them. (The response Cindy gave him was not one of them, btw. Lol.) What did I do with these, though? Deleted them by accident like any idiot would. Where was I … oh yeah. I just really liked that particular line. (I'm high off a Jimmy Neutron marathon. Forgive my rambling.) Btw - hope you liked the classroom fun in this chap, lol! I hope I made it – oh, how did you put it… "so alive". (Of which you are just too sweet to say:LOTS AND LOTS OF HEARTS:) And you are most certainly allowed to ask questions, (sharpens the mind, you know,) I just don't know if I will be answering them…:waggles eyebrows: lol! Lots of hearts and smiles! Keep me updated on things to be fixed!
pokey: Thank you!
Angela Jewell: Thanks! But I sure don't; I've got typers cramp! (And I didn't know that could happen until last week. I pulled two all-nighters squishing that together because I just couldn't stop! Lol, I'm such an obsesser.)
SHAWN: OKAY!
A Pleasant Reader: Well, I'm very sorry about that. I hope you enjoyed this chapter despite my incorrigible manners.
The CheezHead: pff, lucky! Only two? I've got three. Good luck with that homicide, though. Don't get caught. Well, you called that turn-for-the-worse thing well; unfortunatly, there's just so much that needs to be mushed in, Cody will not be making any major appearances. :tear: I had a lot of fun with him in the previous chapter, though, and it seems you did too. And I agree with you on the guy thing; my friend's cousin – who Cody is based partially off of – is so out there and up front about things, it's almost infuriating at times, but I still love him to death. (Not to mention: he is incredibly pretty.) I new it would be impossible to make Cody sound as self-assured as my friend is and still be as funny and lovable as he is as well, so I didn't even bother. I went wild. Too much cauw-fee might be part of the reason, lol!
ReadrBug21: I hope I got you off of them some in this chapter. I'm in contact with pins and needles a lot, and they hurt!
MagicV: No death. Knowing the truth, what do you think?
The Opal Fairy: No worries! And thanks so much; I certainly will!
Elynsynos 18: Thanks! And I don't mind the "rushing"; I do it at my own pace either way! Lol!
Halley Renee: I'm really sorry. I hate that whenever I'm reading a story. I can't believe I've turned into one of the tormentors! I'm glad you love it anyways.
ReddistheRose: Do you need a bag? Because I would hate for you to die before this is over. I've got lots more up my sleeve, but I can say this with full sincerity: the CindyxCody thing with jealous Jimmy on the side was never one of them. I would have taken painful death over bringing myself to write something like that. I would have never been able to do it.
EL CHUPACABRA: Thanks so much! I've been feeling rather melty myself just writing it. Mine are usually more little fuzzies than melties, but to each his own. I feel the same way about the God thing and I'm glad there's comeone else out there who feels the same way. I'm LDS, so expressing what I feel and believe about my values and my religion have never been a big deal. To me, it's second, if not first, nature and something that needs to be accepted by the world. (Not that expressing what I think and feel about anything has ever been a stopper to me. It'll be my down-fall one day, I swear it.) Thanks again, good luck with work, and smile at five strangers just to see how many will smile back!